The Predicament of Free Will
by sundroptea
Summary: A cup, a spy, a boy, a girl, and the choices that result from the interactions of some or more of these. [dracohermione]
1. An interlude of some importance

**Title:** The Predicament of Free Will  
**Author:** sundroptea  
**Rating:** R  
**Warnings: **language, some violence, light sexual situations  
**Disclaimer:** Harry Potter is not mine. At all. Even a smidge. JKR would never trust her characters to me, and quite frankly after this I'm convinced that she'd be justified in banning me from even reading her books.  
**Author's Notes:** This was written for the Hot Summer Nights fic exchange in the dmhgficexchange live journal community, in 2006. The prompt I received is posted at the end of the story, in order not to spoil anything. I tweaked it a bit before posting it here, but nothing major. Absolutely not Deathly Hallows compliant. Please enjoy!  
**Summary:** A cup, a spy, a boy, a girl, and the choices that result from the interactions of some or more of these.

"Man is a being with free will; therefore, each man is potentially good or evil, and it's up to him and only him (through his reasoning mind) to decide which he wants to be."

Ayn Rand

One

**To begin:**

**  
An interlude of some importance in a place of some decay:**

"You're being unreasonable!"

"_You're_ being _naïve_!"

Hermione watched the faces of her closest friends contort in rage as they stared at one another across the Room Table. They refused to call it the war room, wanting to keep some semblance of a homey atmosphere, instead preferring just 'the Room.' Try as they might, they could not get rid of the capitalization on the 'R.' She could see Kingsley had his fists clenched, too, and Merlin knew Moody was a Whizzbee ready to fizz even on a good day. _Fantastic,_ she thought to herself. _Because this degenerating into a first former brawl is really going to help us defeat a power-hungry madman intent on the domination of the world as we know it._

"Harry, I don't see what about this you aren't getting," Tonks' voice was genuinely confused. "They have the Hufflepuff Cup. We need the Hufflepuff Cup! What do you suggest-?"

"What I suggest is that you stop acting so bloody calm about this! You're talking about the man who killed Dumbledore! Since when do we negotiate with Death Eaters?" Harry's green eyes swept the Table, but when he looked at Hermione, she found something in her notes with which to occupy her attention.

"Since it became obvious that this is a different war than the last time, son!" Remus tried to keep the anger out of his voice, but there lurked a bit of wolf in his timbre when he said the word 'son.' "There aren't just two sides here, Harry. It's not just Death Eater and everyone else!"

"There can be as many sides as you please, Lupin, but there's only one bloody right one! And the way to stay on it is to not join the others!" Hestia Jones slammed her fist down in front of her so hard her whole body quivered, right down to the tips of her short black hair.

"Now, hold on there, Jones. Sometimes winning a war requires a dirtying of the hands. Or do you expect us to fight Voldemort with puppies and rainbows?" Moody's voice was calm, although his good eye was twitching and his magic one spinning madly. Albeit with him, it could have been caused by anything from anger to indigestion.

"We're getting off topic now!" Hermione interjected. "The first thing we need to do is verify that he's telling the truth. If this really is from Snape, and he does indeed have the Hufflepuff Cup, how did he get it? Where did he get it?" She was interrupted by Kingsley.

"We've been searching for that damned piece of crockery for months now and before this we hadn't even a drunken whisper of its whereabouts! How did that one blighter get a hold of it when all of us couldn't?" He looked skeptical.

Moody's good eye stopped twitching long enough for him to raise his eyebrow. "Maybe the cup was buried in some mud somewhere, eh, Jones?"

"Just you wait one minute, Alastor Moody! That isn't what I meant at all, and you bloody well know it!"

"This is getting us nowhere!" interjected McGonagall. She waved her hands for silence, and then turned to Hermione again. "You were having a thought, my dear."

Hermione nodded, but was quiet for a moment, her gaze distant. "Let's work on the assumption that it is the cup we're looking for-" Harry's mouth opened and then closed again promptly after Lupin laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. She looked at him anyway, and answered his unspoken question. "Snape is too smart to try and bait us with a fake cup, Harry. He knows that we would check up on his claim, and he knows that to lie is to snap the final thread of diplomacy we would show him, and he wouldn't come out of hiding to put himself _into _danger. We know that Voldemort's not keen on him either, right now, though for what particular reason I couldn't tell you. He's a Slytherin, Harry. It's an issue of hedging his bets."

"How do we know that his being out of favor isn't some big Dark ruse?" Neville's voice was worried.

"Scrimigeour's private records show that when Dolohov was… questioned, he was unequivocal on this point-"

"Which in and of itself screams 'suspicious!'" Ron said.

"It's because of Malfoy." The voice of Phineas' portrait cut through the room, and resulted in a bleeding out of wild chatter.

"What's because of Malfoy?" asked Harry, pushing his glasses up his nose.

"Why, Snape's sudden turn for the unpopular, of course. Do catch up, boy! There are times when I'm quiet thankful I died, and this is one of them. If I had been alive, and forced to try to teach you a subject that didn't involve the balance of life and death, I would probably have wound up killing myself anyway." It really was more insulting when a portrait rolled their eyes at you than could be accurately described.

"What are you saying, Professor Black?" Hermione asked. "That Malfoy did something to make Snape an outcast?"

"Not precisely, my dear girl," his tone was slightly less patronizing when addressing Hermione. In the time she had spent living at Number 12, she had managed to foster a rapport with the crotchety painting. He may have been a Pureblooded Slytherin elitist, but he was a smug peacock first and an opportunist to boot. She knew when to catch the pompous fly with the honey of praise. "Snape wouldn't produce young Malfoy when he was told to do so. Bellatrix has been over to interrogate her sister nearly every day since the raid on Hogwarts. The Sinister Monks can't get a moment to sacrifice a starving pigeon let alone a fatted calf."

"The Sinister Monks?" asked Ron, not bothering to hide his dislike for the portrait's snide tone.

"You'll remember them from your days at Hogwarts, of course? Pardon; I seem to have forgotten for a moment to whom I am speaking. Should you have paid any attention, you would have remembered them from your days at Hogwarts. They were hung in the North Tower- oh, well, actually, they were hung in Didcot in 1655, but before that, one of their, erm, _noble_ number painted a series of portraits of their more elaborate ceremonies. Only two of them have stood the test of time, however. The one he donated to Hogwarts, where he had been educated, and the one passed down from generation to generation, in the family manor in Wiltshire. To his credit, Ambrosias Floridan Malfoy certainly knew how to pay proper respects to one's alma mater."

He paused for a moment, as if in contemplation. "Of course, this was rather offset by the fact that he _did_ almost burn it down in 1654, in his order's zeal to take over the school…"

"That was _him_? Malfoy is related to the League of the Withered Asp? I read all about that in-"

"We know, Hermione," Harry and Ron intoned, simultaneously, breaking into her excited tangent.

"Oh, yes, of course. Sorry. Please, do go on Professor Black." Hermione was contrite, but there was an airy quality to her voice that suggested that she would be interrogating the portrait further, at a more convenient time.

"The Dark Lord has cast Snape out as a traitor. Insubordination is not taken lightly by the former Mr. Riddle. There is a bounty on his head, and young Malfoy's."

Everyone at the table sat back, digesting this.

"That makes sense," Ron admitted slowly, turning to Harry and nodding. "Now what do we do with it?" Harry took off his glasses and rubbed his temples. The Room was quiet, except for the furious scratching of Hermione's quill as she made notes on the conversation that had just taken place.

"Let's recap," grunted Moody. "We get a scroll signed with the mark of Severus Snape, asking us if we were interested in acquiring the Hufflepuff Cup he has in his possession. The note claims that he'd be willing to make a trade, although for what, it didn't say. We find out that he's wanted on both sides, and liked by neither. What do you reckon he wants?"

Harry drummed his fingers on the table. "Is he stupid enough to think that a cup is going to grant him clemency for killing Professor Dumbledore?"

Tonks shook her head. "It's hardly just a Cup, Harry, and you know that as well as I do. But it seems a bit too obliging for Snape… Not quite his style."

"Can we really say that though? He's always had a robe to cling to before; now he's on his own," said Kingsley. Minerva sniffed and looked grim.

"Listen here, sonny. I worked alongside that man for nearly twenty five years, and never once in all of that time have I seen him be the one to bend first. He isn't stupid enough to think that anyone is going to forget his part in Albus' death. This is a desperate act, by a desperate man, but to what end?" She folded her hands in her lap, pretending not to notice them shaking.

Hermione suddenly sat up very straight in her chair. "What if it's not Snape who's desperate?"

Lupin, having caught her train of thought, slapped his palm on the table. "What about Draco? He's the catalyst for all this. How do you suppose Snape feels towards him, being the reason his Lord's put a bounty on him?"

"I should imagine not warm and fuzzy!" said Tonks, whose hair had sprung out in purple ringlets with her excitement.

"It would be like that coward Snape to bully someone weaker than him," growled Moody, wrinkling the remains of his nose in disgust.

Hermione shook her head. "I think we may be approaching it the wrong way. After all, he choose _not_ to give up Malfoy's whereabouts when he had the chance. Why would he do that, if his intent was to stay in league with Voldemort?"

"Maybe he couldn't! Maybe he didn't know where Malfoy was," Neville said, frowning.

"Then why wouldn't he try to find him? The Dark Lord takes a sick sort of thrill in the hunt," Harry looked thoughtful, making his best effort to put aside his dislike for Snape in favor of logic. "I'm pretty sure that Voldemort would get a kick out of Snape running Malfoy down."

"Unless that's not the only reason why He Who Must Not Be Named is angry at him."

"What else could there be? He bagged Dum- er- What I mean to say is, he removed one of the Dark Lord's biggest threats. Isn't that enough to earn a gold star in Death Eating?" Tact was apparently not lost on Fred Weasley completely.

"Was he supposed to?" asked Tonks.

"Supposed to what?"

"Kill him? Did Voldemort want him alive for something?"

"No. Voldemort wanted him dead, I can promise you that," said Harry, rubbing his scar. "But why wouldn't he want Snape to be the one to do it?"

"Maybe because he lost his biggest spy?"

"Or perhaps because he wanted to do it himself?"

"They said something on the Tower, the other Death Eaters, about Malfoy being the one to do it. They even stopped Fenrir Greybeck from attacking. What if Voldemort was mad that Snape didn't make Malfoy do it himself?" Harry spread his hands in confusion.

"I don't like it," said Molly. "There are too many unknowns here!"

"Mum's right," Ron nodded, and rested his chin in his hands. He wore the same sharp look of concentration that he did in chess just before sending Harry into paroxysms of maligned defeat. "We're not even certain that the note's from Snape."

"If not Snape, then who?" snapped Hestia. "You-Know-Who doesn't know we know about the Horcruxes."

"She's right, Ron," murmured Harry. "Unless he told Voldemort before being cast out."

"If Voldemort knew that we knew about the Horcruxes then he would have struck long before now. That's his ace in the hole, so to speak. And I have the feeling that he keeps them a secret even his most loyal ring of followers. After all, the loyalty of a Death Eater is not something upon which to plan your future. To speak of it to him would be suicide, if this is indeed the case," Minerva's voice was firm.

"If, if, if! Isn't there anything we know for sure?" burst out Tonks. "I mean, besides the fact that we don't know anything at all?" She hopped up from her chair and began to pace tugging at ears that were suddenly a foot long in the lobes.

"Let's not stir up our cauldrons before we light the flame," Kingsley said, as Lupin grabbed Tonks and sat her back down. Slightly mollified by her quick outburst her ears returned to their normal size and shape. "We know that we have an offer, and as far as I can see, our only option is to treat it as legitimate. What if it is the Cup, and we ignore it? Can we really take that chance?"

There was silence in the room. Everyone knew he was right, and there was nothing for it now but to plan as best they could.

"Who's going to meet him?" Ron asked. Hermione took out a fresh scroll and started making a timeline.

"Why, I will, Ronald. I'm the one who's been studying the Hufflepuff Cup."

"Out of the question, Hermione! This is my fight! I'm going!" Harry grabbed her spare quill and scratched her name out on her scroll, mostly just to annoy her. She slapped his hand. "Besides, I've _seen_ the Hufflepuff Cup. I'll know what it looks like."

"Bully for you Harry. You're still not going. I am. You're far too confrontational. Also, if this is a trap, it's probably more for you than me. Better to keep you in the shadows."

"That's supposed to make me feel better? 'Don't worry Harry! They'd probably only want me for bait!'" He raked a hand through his hair and stared at her, his green eyes narrow and his mouth set firmly, even through the falsetto.

"No, actually," said Hermione, wringing her hands, though her tone of voice was as sensible and pragmatic as the Order had ever heard it. "They would probably want me dead for, you know, general demoralizing purposes. But it would be better me than-"

"Hermione!"

She flushed. "Well, it would! Besides, I'd feel safer having you on guard. You're much better at combat magic than I am." She didn't know if that would work, because, flying aside, there were few things that she didn't overachieve at, and everyone knew it.

"The note was specific as to the times and places, which makes me uncomfortable. We should write back and change the rendezvous. Our territory or nothing," Kingsley was all tactics and strategy, and that helped to divert Harry's attention from Hermione, who was busy re-writing her name on the timetable. She knew Ron was looking at her though, and that made her take time to flourish the 'H' and underline it.

They weren't going to change her mind. She felt something pulling her towards this mission, a precognitive tingle that told her that this would be important for her, individually, as well as for her side. She set aside her speculative musing, as she had a plan of attack to help devise and focusing on the ball of ice in her stomach was not going to prove productive for anyone.

* * *

Draco Malfoy waited for Severus' return with a bitterness that failed to surprise him. In the long months since the day of the tower, he had grown used to the companionship of bitterness and despondency. 

_"Please make at least a passing attempt at logical reasoning today, Draco, and do not try to leave. You know very well the situation outside, and what happened last time I was forced to… retrieve you."_

Severus' parting words echoed through his head, bouncing around, and scraping the edges like so many finely sharpened verbal razors.

Of course he hadn't listened. Once he was sure Severus was gone, he rushed to the mouth of the cave and was promptly flung backwards as the wards kicked into effect. He had hit his head rather hard on one of the walls, he thought, from the amount of blood under his fingers, but as there were no mirrors in this paradise of captivity, he couldn't really be sure.

The woozy feeling helped him make a guess though.

_Damn him!_ Draco pulled himself up from where he lay, just incapacitated enough to be prevented from making another go at escaping. _That bastard has no right to keep me locked up like this!_

No, that was the ministry's job, now.

Draco slumped back, thinking over the series of events that had led to his latest head wound, and his abysmal surroundings in general. _If only…_

But no. He was not one to dwell on what ifs. He did what he'd had to do, and he couldn't see any point at where he might have known to act differently. His parents were all he had, their name, their honor, their _lives_…

That was all he had believed in for his entire life, and now that it was gone, he didn't really care much about what happened either way. He only thought that he'd rather be locked up by the ministry than bartered with by Severus. He didn't expect to live much longer in any case, but he'd be damned if he allowed himself to be used as a galleon in some deal to buy Severus' freedom.

He thought he heard movement in the front of the cave and he couldn't squelch the twinge of relief he felt; at least Severus wouldn't let him bleed to death, not if it meant losing his bartering chip.

He wondered morbidly what Voldemort would do to him, exactly, and in what order. Long and messy, as an example of the foolishness of failing, or quick and humiliating in its insignificance to anyone?

It was all moot anyway. His father was dead; his mother, God, his mother... Everything and everyone he had sacrificed his future for was now just so much dust in the memory of the world.

He had gotten away from Severus once and only once, although it hadn't been for lack of trying since.

Draco had found his opportunity during the weekly bath.

He had been granted relative freedom from Severus during that time, both because he had not yet before made an attempt to part company and because Severus had been convinced that simply taking the wandless boy's clothes was insurance enough of his return.

He missed that time. It was a simpler, less naked-in-front-of-older-blokes sort of time.

It was not the most pleasant experience he'd ever had, running naked through the forest brush, holding his bits with one hand, knowing an injury there would be crippling, and trying to remember the way to the small wizarding village that Severus used to keep tabs on Voldemort's spread in Wizard Britain. He'd done it, though, and he'd done it quickly, knowing he'd had a bare few minutes (with no pun intended) before Severus noticed his departure. Severus had magic, and at the moment of flight, Draco did not, and was acutely aware of that. It only got worse before it got better, as his stinging altercation with a Venomous Tentacula proved. But he'd gone, bleeding, bruised, _poisoned_ and he made it to the village in time to snatch a wand, staunch the bleeding, and apparate to the outskirts of Malfoy Manor. He'd felt the tingle that meant his presence had been detected at the house, but he didn't know if his mother was currently entertaining any of her less illustrious guests. He also felt the tracking wards Severus had placed pulling at his skin, and he had known that his free time was coming to an end, one way or the other.

He'd come too far to quit now, he reckoned, and hitched up the rough robes he'd transfigured from some fallen leaves, darting straight for the Manor's front doors.

He recognized the luck he'd had that the doors still opened automatically for him as he raced up the stairs to his mother's chambers, where he'd felt sure she would be, seeing as how he hadn't been killed or shackled immediately upon entrance. No guests then, although he was convinced that they would be coming soon.

"Mother!" he'd burst out, jamming the door open with his shoulder, and trying to shake off the deja-vu he'd felt, having done something similar many times in his boyhood with far less grim and dire tidings.

She was seated at her vanity, her back to him, but her blue-grey eyes meeting his own in the glass. A Slytherin would never not be able to see the door.

She had smiled, beginning to turn his way, and for one perfect, delightful moment he'd thought, 'This is it! I'm here. I'll take her and we can run and then somewhere I'll find a way to build the Malfoy name again, all I have to do now is…'

And then he saw the scars. The sides of her face and head were crisscrossed with raised and jagged bumps, and he recognized them from newspaper photos he'd seen from when the Longbottoms were covered by The Prophet as the Most Valiant of the Unsung. No names had been mentioned, and the features were blurred, but he'd known, of course, with the same certainty that he knew now, the meticulous work of his Aunt Bella.

"Draco dear!" his mother started, holding her arms wide. He had gone to her, hoping it wasn't as bad as it looked, knowing it was his fault, his doing. He'd taken hold of her chin, gently, and studied her wounds, the most vivid and violent of which looked as fresh as if it had been done that day. He'd known if he counted them there would most likely be one for each and every day he had been hidden away.

One for each day since the Tower.

His mother then slapped him sweetly across the face, leaving a stinging welt and then snuggled into his chest, wrapping her arms around him tightly, still smiling her familiar smile, the one she reserved for him alone. It had broke him then, into little pieces, the absolute faultlessness of her smile, when the rest of her was so irreparably damaged as to make her an animated corpse.

"It's time for tea!" she had exclaimed letting him go, and seemingly not noticing him backing slowly away. "It's not nice to keep guests waiting, even if they do mean to kill you, sweetheart, did I say kill, I meant kiss, come give mummy a kiss she missed you oh you dead little man why are you dressed like a caveman those clothes make my head hurt, but that's common enough now, I think I hear your Aunty calling, but you should run because she means to spank you for your transgressions and what now are you crying, darling, Malfoys don't cry they blink and count their titles in their heads, oh my head, I'm bleeding! BLEEDING!" She began thrashing from side to side, not bleeding in the slightest.

Her hands flew up and waved around her head, as if wanting to clutch it but knowing that it would only make it worse. Some of the scabs opened again, and now she really was bleeding, and oozing something that looked viscous and raw. But she had begun laughing even as she wailed keenly at the pain that had made her fall from her seat.

Draco just watched her, feeling his will to continue draining slowly away, each beat of his pulse a painful struggle, pumping out any hope he'd had, in much the same manner as his mother's wounds. He sat on a bench and waited for his Aunt Bella, and he hoped he had time to get at least one hex in, to make her bleed for her sister, just a little.

It was Severus however who was through the door first, and Draco just stared numbly up at him.

"Why did you run away from me, idiot boy?! And to here? Of all places here? Are you trying to get yourself killed? Get up! Get up, you useless…" Severus' stopped midway through hoisting him to his feet when the tableaux he was seeing caught up with his intellect. "Oh Draco. I did not mean for you to find out this way. I am sorry, but we _must_ go now. It's what she would have wanted."

A spark of anger had flickered then, across Draco's deadened face. "How would you know? You're nothing but a power hungry leech, who'd steal a person's chance to save their family in the hope of currying favor with the _madman_ who threatened them in the first place!"

Snape had looked at him, with unreadable emotion in his eyes, before shaking it off, and drawing to his full height. "You may rail against my character and my lineage all you wish, but please do so later when we are out of immediate danger. I crashed the apparition spells, but your aunt knows how to rebuild them, and how to do it quickly. Now, Draco, we must flee-"

Further instruction was prevented by Narcissa. She had stopped screaming and stood up, smeared from head to toe in blood and pus. She calmly re-sat herself at the vanity, and began applying lipstick to her eyes and cheeks.

"Oh, Severus, darling! How lovely to see you! It's a shame you didn't do as I asked," she had trilled, discarding the lipstick and dumping some foundation potion into her hair, rubbing it in with both hands and not noticing that she was kneading it into her sores, seemingly unaware of the pain. "Perhaps next time you make a promise to someone you'll let them know first where you stand in the grander scheme of things. I prefer in the north orchards, by the trees with the flowering fruit."

Severus had started slightly, at being addressed so. Draco watched his face, wondering what his mother's body could have said to make a hardened spy visibly react. Snape's efforts at hauling Draco out of the room had tripled, and he found himself being dragged through the door and down the hall. His pilfered wand snapped and useless, he had just resigned himself to going with Severus, when his mother's form popped out of her room and followed them.

"Don't you fall away when I'm talking to you about serious things, young man! I am discussing blood betrayal, a Vow and a bond and you have none now, none now, none how, how I remember days when we used to play, the GARDENS need TENDING! Now that your father is dead, there is no one to remember such things!" She ripped a frame off the wall, and the portrait of The Holy Monks his never endingly-great Uncle Ambrosias had painted went flying over the third floor balcony.

"What betrayal, Mum? What are you talking about? Father's dead?" Draco's fists and feet were suddenly flying, breaking the grip Severus had on him. Severus tried to magically bind him, but Draco elbowed him in the throat. "What're you talking about, Mum? What betrayal?"

Narcissa was now turning circles, but she stopped and looked at her son. "He was supposed to help you kill Dumbledore. He was supposed to save you. He promised me, and then he killed you. And now you walk through these halls a ghost, and your father killed because of it! That and the babies!"

She did a jaunty two step and then, for one brief second, she gasped and seemed to come to herself. She stumbled to her knees and locked sane eyes with Draco's horrified ones.

"She's here. Go!"

Then she collapsed completely. As did all of Draco's hopes for the future.

At first, he'd been completely drained. The news of his father's demise had struck him, cut him deeply, but not so much as the fate of his mother. It was fairly assumed that Lucius wouldn't make it out of Azkaban alive, so much so that they'd already had a reading of the will, even before the night of the Tower.

They'd escaped from the Manor, scant seconds before his aunt had come charging down the hall. Snape had already wrapped his fingers around a Portkey and they were back in the cave, with the howls of his unbalanced aunt ringing in their ears.

Severus moved him about the cave like a rag doll, forcing him to eat and to sleep, even though there was no real point in it for him anymore. He'd tolerated Snape's administrations because he had felt divorced from life, completely devoid of any future aspirations or the will to live. He actually didn't remember much from that week of restless sleep and cognitive disassociation. One memory of staring at a cave wall blends into every other memory of staring at a cave wall, over time.

He remembers Snape being angry though, which he now thought rather bloody callous in a frightening sort of way. He'd railed at him for hours about the _stupidity_ of what he'd done, hadn't he been given a brain to use, or had that been knocked out by a bludger sometime back? What an irresponsible thing he'd done, apparently, not just for him but for his mother. Did Draco have any idea how much worse it was going to be for her now that it was known he was still alive?

That had been the point where he'd come back to himself slightly.

This man had no business talking about his mother. If there was anything in the world that he knew anymore, it was that. He hadn't been able to shake his mother's words. Rather, one word of hers in particular, as he blocked most of the bit about his clothes and grooming out, as it horrified him as well.

That word was 'betrayal.'

_"I am discussing blood betrayal, a Vow and…"_

He knew about the promise Snape had made his mother, that he would help him when he could. But it was ridiculous. He hadn't tried to help at all. He'd taken his only chance at saving himself and his family away from him, and then hidden him, so that Voldemort had time to finish off his family. And then he'd lied, said it was for his own good, said his mother had asked him too. The injustice… It had been the only thing keeping him sane, during that time of comatose apathy. Well, sane being relative in this case, with a senseless lack of concern for your own welfare being the most and the fiendish caretaking of the hostage who's family you somehow betrayed being the least well adjusted.

As soon as he'd really had time to process and digest the fact that the man who had saved him on the tower, who had spirited him away when he'd needed it most, had done it to destroy him, the lethargy fled and left in its vast and expansive place a new emotion.

Anger.

It was a deep, simmering, festering anger; the kind only a Slytherin could do justice to.

And so he waited. He played the perfect unwitting captive; he lay about as though wrecked by the knowledge of his mother's mental demise, with glassy eyes and a blank expression.

He'd been trying to get free ever since. He'd thought he'd have better luck when Severus and he made their trips to the village, or bathing area, but no such luck. Severus watched him every minute and usually had a magical leash around his wrist, despite his limp limbs and lack of response to outside stimuli.

The man knew a fellow Slytherin when he met one.

Draco knew that Severus didn't buy his act completely, but also knew that he was starting to get worried. He'd taken to staring at him staring at the cave walls. It was everything Draco had not to twitch under the scrutinizing gaze, not to strike out at the man he now blamed for his family's destruction.

He was ashamed to admit that he wished there was some plausible explanation for his mother's words. He wanted for there to be some way to take in everything, sum it up, and come out with at least one true ally in this new world of caves and shadows.

His anger hadn't blinded him to reason. He debated the possibility that his mother's words were as suspect as his questionable attire that day. He contemplated the possibility of her just being wrong, her words a story woven from a simple strand of crazy, and he felt guilty for how much of him wanted to believe that. It would make everything so much simpler and he could go back to thinking that someone in this world would be there to defend him.

He hadn't run _away_ from Severus, then. He'd been running _to_ his mother. If Severus hadn't cut off his every attempt to discuss the prospect of collecting her, he wouldn't have run to begin with. He'd honestly thought that it had been Snape's intention all along to aid him, that he'd gotten it wrong that frantic, frenzied final year when he'd thought Snape was out to foil him at every turn.

At any rate, when he'd gone, it had never entered his mind that he wouldn't be coming back. He'd just be bringing his mum along, so she'd be safe too.

He kept running aground because there was no way for him to sail around something that he knew: there was truth in what his mother said. He wondered why he thought that; he was baffled by the certainty he felt that it wasn't just more mad rambling from the torn remains of a savaged mind.

He didn't believe in Divination, but he reluctantly admitted that it had to be some sort of intuition. His mother was the person he loved best in the world. If he couldn't read her, sanity or no sanity, than he wasn't the son he'd always assumed he was. He could plainly see when she had meant what she was saying and when it was just her words escaping her.

He shook his head to try to clear it, recognizing it as a bad idea almost immediately after embarking upon the action. None of this was helping him now, as he bled from the head, immobilized, even as his captor went to make the arrangements for his change of guard.

He'd read the letter that Severus had drafted, proposing a trade.

_To whom it may concern: I have in my possession a certain item that I feel may be of some considerable use to you. If you desire to acquire it, you may contact me via this owl and this owl alone. Only this one will reach me. Rest assured that you will not find me otherwise._

After that had been his insignia, the mark of the house of Prince, and nothing else.

That had been the first of suddenly much correspondence, a flurry of feathers and fetching of ink and scroll. Severus had sent two more letters, letters he didn't have the opportunity to read, but both making Severus pace with some degree of brimstone in his stride.

He surmised that Severus was planning on trading him off in return for either a lighter sentence, or to curry favor with the Dark Lord. He knew it would be soon. The flinty look in Snape's eye whenever it fell on his prostrate form hardened day by day until his stone eyes gleamed like over-polished marble. It was a faintly feverish look, one that seemed to glisten more fanatically as time went on. It had worried Draco that such a controlled man would display his emotions so boldly. It meant something unexpected was about to happen. This was not a look someone about to plan a final escape from confinement enjoyed seeing on his warden's face. It was a look that made Draco nervous, and that was not promising.

Then, today, it had disappeared.

Now there was only a strange anticipation, a certain calm that had dissipated the anxious tension in Snape's frame. It was worse than the gleam.

It had led to his foolish rush on the mouth of the cave. He knew that it was warded; he'd felt them from the back of the cave, where he'd started his run from. What's more is that he'd seen them erected, and knew which ones they were.

Snape knew that the wandless boy was good and trapped and that he need not take any trouble in hiding it from him anymore.

He wished he hadn't been so blind, or so prideful. Dumbledore's words came back to him now, to taunt him with the promise of another way, but it had died when he had died, and now he was stuck in a cave with a man who wanted to barter him like a collapsible cauldron in Slapdashed Alley.

All of this seemed wildly unimportant to him now, as his vision began to swim. He wondered seriously whether it might not be better for him to die on the floor with nothing accomplished than being killed by a militant group after having enacted some form of revenge. A revenge with knives, he thought fuzzily, big, shiny ones that liked their job.

In that strange, contradictory state brought on by impending sleep and massive head wounds, he found the rustling at the front of the cave getting louder, and yet foggier at the same time. He couldn't reason why Snape was taking his sweet time in coming to chastise him for trying to get away, or some other grievance he'd thought of while out arranging his demise. _It wasn't like him,_ he thought. It was his only real delight now that he couldn't take off house points.

The noises came closer and he began a silent tirade in his mind about how rude it was to be loud when someone was _obviously_ trying to sleep on the floor of a cave in a pool of their own blood. Some people had no manners!

He was still working out where exactly he had just went wrong in his thinking when he noticed something interesting about the sounds that were so disrupting him. It wasn't Snape who was making them.

"Bloody fucking oath! Would you come and look at this?" said the Voice-Who-Was-Not-Snape.

He realized he was about to die when his mind connected a name with the voice. Since it was impossible that he should actually be correct, he must be in the midst of the death hallucinations.

There was no way that Harry-friggin'-Potter et. al were in his cave.

He said his last goodbyes, and then everything went completely black.

* * *

He knew something was wrong the second the Portkey let go of his navel. 

The plan was that they pop in a few miles away from the village Snape had specified, and close in from all sides, to keep an accurate watch. It was a sound plan, and he wasn't just saying that because it had been him who'd come up with it.

He was covering the direct eastern sector. Two miles of trees and underbrush to stalk through stood before him, and somewhere up ahead he heard the hissing of a Venomous Tentacula. He shuddered and vowed to steer clear of _that_. He knew he had to meet up with Harry and Hermione at the inner rim of the village square.

After Harry had insisted Hermione not meet the one claiming to be Snape alone, she had relented and agreed to go as 1/3 of the Trio. Ron knew that she was both pleased and disgruntled at the prospect.

On one hand she felt safer with her best friends, evidenced by her small sigh and the subtle shift of her shoulders that suggested a release of some indefinable tension. On the other, she was convinced for some reason that this was a mission she had to do, and her gut instinct told her she should go alone.

Ron knew all about gut instincts. He lived by them almost exclusively. Unless it was chess or battle plans he pretty much went where his wand pointed, the hell with the rest. It was this faith in his gut instincts that led to his uneasiness upon his completion of the Portkey there.

Right now, everything in him told him that something weird was about to happen, something that he hadn't foreseen. He would almost have called it a premonition, if three years of Divination with Trelawney hadn't taught him that all such nonsense was rubbish.

He couldn't put his finger on the origin of his discomfort. At least, until he turned around, that is. He was looking up into the opening of a large cave, some yards off, too deep for him to see to the back of it, even if it hadn't been just after sundown on a fairly moonless night.

His mouth hung open as he stared at the cave, drawn in and repelled both by the inky blackness that comprised the archway. He took a tentative step towards it, shuffling his feet slightly, which he regretted as it's one of the first things an Auror learns not to do. He had been a master of stealth when Moody had taught the younger Order members the basic principles.

He also regretted it for another reason:

Immediately following the scuff of his worn wizard trainers on the dirt a hand clamped down on his shoulder with considerable force.

He was already moving into a defensive roll, with his wand up and some of Fred and George's Sneak Powder in his hand when he saw who had grabbed him and grumbled in disgust.

"Dammit Harry! Why would you even _do_ that? Why?" he stored the powder away again, angry at having been caught off guard, knowing that it could have been someone who didn't like him quite so much as his best mate.

"Test your reflexes. You're getting slow in your old age, Grandpa." Harry decided that ranting about his startling lack of awareness would only rub salt in his wounds and get him angry, thus damaging his focus even more. Instead, of course, he taunted him, to calm him down.

Boy logic, whatever that means.

"What're you even doing here? You're supposed to be Apparating directly into the village proper." Ron was still preoccupied with the cave, but his wand was up and his shield spells rechecked again. He would not be caught with his knickers down twice, he resolved. "Where's Hermione?"

"She's waiting back at Grimmauld Place. I needed to talk to you first, before the meeting."

Ron, still battling the unease that had led to his distraction previously, was making his way towards the mouth of the cave. "What about, mate?" His voice was distant. He felt like there was somewhere else he needed to be, but he ignored it. This was more important, for some reason.

"If this thing goes pear shaped today, I want you to get Hermione out of there. If this is some trick of Voldemort's to kill you guys… I need for it not to work. You've got to promise me that…" Harry's earnest voice trailed off, because it was then he sensed the magic surrounding the cave. He grabbed Ron's arm to still his slow approach, and hissed, "Do you feel that?"

Ron nodded, and that was when the first blast sent them sprawling backwards into the trees.


	2. To finish:

-1**Title:** The Predicament of Free Will  
**Author:** sundroptea  
**Rating:** R  
**Warnings: **language, some violence, light sexual situations  
**Disclaimer:** Harry Potter is not mine. At all. Even a smidge. JKR would never trust her characters to me, and quite frankly after this I'm convinced that she'd be justified in banning me from even reading her books.  
**Author's Notes:** This was written for the Hot Summer Nights fic exchange in the dmhgficexchange live journal community, in 2006. The prompt I received is posted at the end of the story, in order not to spoil anything. I tweaked it a bit before posting it here, but nothing major. Absolutely not Deathly Hallows compliant. Please enjoy!  
**Summary:** A cup, a spy, a boy, a girl, and the choices that result from the interactions of some or more of these.

Two

**To finish:**

**  
**

**A plan comes to fruition and several truths are revealed without any resolution of the bigger problem.**

Severus Snape was not a man who liked to depend on providence.

He was methodical, logical, and meticulous. It's what had made him a good spy. He planned, he did, and then he was done.

That's what made him so unhappy in this messy business with Draco. The boy was a loose cannon, as his jaunt to the Manor proved. He couldn't count on him to behave in any one particular way. For his plan to work, he'd have to leave a large part to almighty chance, and it didn't improve his mood in the slightest.

Something was amiss; he could _smell_ it.

Life was like potions-making. You isolate the unknown components and stir the correct number of times to produce the desired result. It was concise and precise, exactly the way he liked things.

He felt a pricking in his wand hand. The wards had been activated.

Why must that boy be so extraordinarily stubborn?

He knew that Draco was angry at him, knew that he'd misconstrued his unfortunate mother's words, but he couldn't do anything about that now. For one thing, in the state of mind Draco was in, Snape wasn't convinced that he would believe him. For another, he couldn't be sure that some noble streak in Draco wouldn't activate and make him try and fight the plan even harder.

He was still bound by his Vow to Narcissa, her own disfigured reason aside, and he had to protect Draco. He'd done so to his fullest faculties, hiding his mother's condition, marking himself as a target of Voldemort, killing Albus…

He jerked his mind sharply away from that topic. He didn't have time to mourn his mentor properly now, and even if he did, he certainly didn't have the right to.

This was ridiculous, standing here, in open view, having an emotion.

He had a task to do, something to ensure Draco's safety and fulfill his obligation to Narcissa. Then, hopefully, he'd be able to get back in with the Death Eaters.

He had several things to discuss with one Bellatrix Lestrange; he hoped she would prove adept at speaking through mouthfuls of her own blood.

He'd known when he'd made the Vow that it would come to something like this. He'd hoped to avoid it, by telling Dumbledore. He'd asked him to kill him first, if it came down to the two of them, and Draco. Dumbledore had shook his head, telling him that he'd made a promise he had to keep. He'd said that sometimes it was stronger to make a decision that you never wanted to have to, than to have lived without the choice at all.

He was always going on about things like that.

Dammit. If he was going to have a flashback, he refused to do it by halves. He sank back onto a nearby planter, and rendered his face as blank as possible.

He tried to forget most of that unspeakable night on the Tower, but he remembered the words that Dumbledore had spoken to him.

"_Severus."_ In his mind he'd heard Dumbledore's voice, telling him to retrieve something once he died, and not to blame himself, that his time had simply come, whatever guise it had approached under. Snape hadn't wanted to but then Dumbledore had shown him parts of the cave, the walking dead, the Horcrux missing from the bowl, and then… _"Severus, please."_

He'd done it, and it made him ill to remember it. He would have rather died himself, but Dumbledore had said no, had asked to die, _begged_ him…

_Enough!_ He told himself to focus, a task becoming more difficult exponentially by the day with Draco still in such immediate danger. The Unbreakable Vow worked like a vice, squeezing tighter around his mind until he died when it felt him not complying.

He checked his watch; they were late.

The cup was pressing into his side, concealed beneath his voluminous robes. The glamour he had used to conceal his identity was beginning to itch something fierce, but he couldn't risk someone recognizing him, someone not a member of the Order.

How easy it had been to actually get the cup. He hadn't believed Dumbledore when he'd asked him to fetch it, hadn't believed that reclaiming a piece of the Dark Lord's soul would be that undemanding. He'd simply walked into the old orphanage and performed a spell to give the stones a voice. The mortar had told him where Voldemort had hidden it, and a great many other things about his former master as well.

Snape was then distracted by a barrage of sharp spikes of sensation in his hand. The wards were activating like mad but he couldn't tell if they were triggered from inside or out. He stood, almost convulsively, about to make his way back to the cave. He knew it couldn't be Death Eaters; he'd set some of the wards to specifically react to the presence of the Dark Mark. His left arm was almost completely pain free, a sure sign that none of his old comrades were in the area. But then…

There.

The Order had come, and this was his only chance. He set up his mental cauldron. _Lay out the ingredients._

He could see a neat head of bushy hair floating through the bustling collection of villagers. That's one. _Peel gently, lay aside._

On top of a nearby rooftop sat a very stiff looking feline. Two. _Add whole._

Leaning against the wall, reading the Prophet, was a burly looking gentleman who had a shockingly pink streak of hair on the back of his head. Three. _Stir once, counter clockwise._

Moody wasn't even a challenge; his scarred face and thumping wooden leg were dead giveaways and he could see the man twitching from the other side of the square. Probably wishing to get him in a dark place where no laws or Order members could stop him.

_Too bad, old man,_ Snape thought grimly. _I've got too much to complete before you'll get your justice for Albus._

_Bring to boil._

Now, as Miss Granger picked her way through the ingenuous crowd, there were only two unknown components to isolate before adding the final ingredient.

It was with a sick sort of feeling that he turned to face her. He never liked to leave a potion unfinished.

"Pro-Professor Snape." Hermione's head was high, but her face was pinched. Harry and Ron were absent. It would take something large, and possibly fanged, to make Harry miss this, especially after the multiple arguments they'd had about it. He was too stubborn to miss this for anything other than life or… She couldn't finish the thought.

She had a job to do here.

"Miss Granger."

He looked at her and knew immediately that something in her planning had gone awry as well. Her lips were pressed together and her brow was creased with worry. He wondered, without rancor, if it was simply because she had underestimated how hard it would be to behave civilly to the man who had killed Albus Dumbledore.

"Let's get down to it, Snape," her voice had lost its hesitance, and taken on a brassy quality. _Bad form, Miss Granger. Never show pain to those who could use it._ "You know that I have at least four Aurors guarding me and I know you are too desperate to lie. What do you want for the cup?"

Snape had considered many ways to approach this. He was pleased it was Miss Granger alone. The direct tactic was his preferred method, in this case. He was glad they both agreed, although he was vaguely scornful of her Gryffindor bluntness.

"Take Draco."

Not that two couldn't play that game.

"What?" Hermione's eyebrows shot to her hairline, and the lines around her eyes relaxed for a split second in utter amazement. Whatever she had been expecting him to say, it certainly wasn't that.

"Miss Granger, you are a reasonable creature, I hope. You will understand that though he was the instrument of the attack he was not the musician. His part in it was that of pawn, and he did not understand the game he was playing in."

Hermione held up her hand in absolute confusion, and the creases were back in her face, this time with a new aspect of frustration. He'd seen that look when she was struggling with a particularly difficult aspect of potions-making. It was a look that plainly said, "Why don't I know this? I am too smart not to know this."

"You know Malfoy's whereabouts? How?" she gripped her wand slightly more tightly.

"He's been with me since the night on the-" He stopped abruptly. Neither wanted to go there, while doing this. It would only complicate matters.

"Then why didn't you turn him in when Voldemort told you to?"

Ahh, the crux of it. Would she believe the truth? He debated it. She was more apt to than her male counterparts, but it would still be a stretch, even for her. She didn't want to believe it, he didn't think.

"That is a matter that does not concern you, particularly, Miss Granger. Kindly focus on the matter at hand."

He regretted the tone as soon as it left his mouth.

"Excuse me, but I happen to believe it _does_ 'concern me, particularly.' Why should we agree to 'take Draco' without some idea as to your motives in turning him over? Do you think that we would accept a trade, him for your freedom? You are sorely mistaken."

Her raised voice and stiff shoulders drew the 'hidden' Order members in closer. Moody was grinning and fairly cackling with glee at the apparent likelihood of an opportunity to hex him presenting itself.

_Bring the flame down gently._

"I didn't turn him in because of a Vow I made sometime before the circumstance of the Tower." He didn't flinch, but she did. "I couldn't, and moreover, I wouldn't. And I now must get you to take him in, because the Vow is an ongoing one, one that requires I protect him. He will be safest with you, exceptionally now, as I am a man marked for death. Can you understand that he did only what he thought he must, in order to protect those he held dear?"

Hermione's shoulders jerked reactively. She wondered at the man's compassion. It seemed out of character for the man who had killed his benefactor of nearly twenty years without so much as a glance backwards.

"It is not a question of forgiving Malfoy, here, _Professor_," the word came out as a vicious sneer and it was almost everything he had not to attempt to correct her. "Furthermore, I'll thank you kindly for not taking the road of moral fortitude. You have no cause to travel it. It's a question of what you have planned and what part Malfoy plays in it. Are you trying to plant him as a spy? I assure you that should he be accepted, he would be under lock and key. He would have no opportunity to contact you."

"No doubt, Miss Granger. I'm not looking for a spy or a contact or a way out of prosecution. Just take him, keep him from his aunt and her friends, and for the love of Merlin, do not allow him to escape. There are bad people looking for him, Miss Granger, worse than you, by far. He'd be better off in your custody than theirs."

Stung slightly by the 'worse than you' comment, she shifted tactics. "Where's the cup, then?"

He retrieved it from his robes. He held the box containing it open, so that she could view it fully. It was beautiful, despite its age, or perhaps because of it. Two golden handles braced it dotingly and the powerful magic it emitted washed over her face, even from the safe distance away she was at.

"Miss Granger, do not presume that you know everything there is to know about any of the events that have occurred in this world. Believe it or not, I would like to see Voldemort fall as much as you do. More so, I would say, because I have a greater working knowledge of what there is to hate. I will give you this cup, and in return you will take Mister Malfoy into your Order's custody. This is something which _must_ occur."

His face was so changed, so unlike its usual stoic displeasure, she was forced to pause. If he knew how unlike himself he looked at this moment he would be forced to admit hypocrisy in his earlier admonishment for Miss Granger showing weakness. It was enough for Hermione. She still didn't believe him, but she needed the cup.

"You can't expect me to accept without discussing it with the Order," she was stalling, but doing so finely, giving the other members time to close in discreetly and circle him. He noticed the diminutive form of Hestia Jones detaching from the queue of a smallish fruit stand. _One drop of calamine, to aid in digestion._

"I don't think that you have a choice, Miss Granger. As such, in good faith, I give this to you now."

With that he thrust the box into her hands, along with a note on which there were only coordinates written.

"He is here, and he is in dire need of help. There. Something a true Gryffindor could simply never pass up." With that he Disapparated with a crack leaving Hermione and the order staring in confusion at the box she now held.

* * *

Harry and Ron had dismantled the majority of the wards and shielded themselves against the rest. Both were slightly worse for the wear, but nothing major.

"We're so late. Hermione is going to eat our heads if she misses this meeting," Harry said, trying to bolster the naive hope he held that she would perhaps wait for them to return before starting anything.

"I'm sure she'll be fine, Harry. She has an entire entourage of Aurors and whatnot to make sure that she's fine and bossy, just like always." Ron knew that her going was a done deal, although he worried for her safety as well. He just didn't want to make Harry any more antsy than he already was.

They fell silent and set themselves in an attack formation. Harry sent a Patronus to Grimmauld Place to alert them of the situation.

"Ready?" Ron asked.

Harry looked at him and nodded. Moving slowly, they entered the cave.

Ron muttered 'Lumos,' holding his wand high above his head. He couldn't completely make out the back, but he saw that it wasn't as big as it looked from the outside.

Harry noticed two pallets and a transfigured table. Some rough crockery and utensils lay on it, and an inkwell and quill lay on the floor to the side. Harry went over to examine some stray bits of parchment, but Ron noticed something wet and shiny snaking across the floor.

He brought his wand closer, seeing it take on a dark reddish hue. His gag reflex worked a bit. He didn't care how many battles he'd fight in, he would never enjoy the sight of blood.

He was loathe to, but he followed what turned out to be a trail to a slumped shape against the backmost wall.

"Bloody fucking oath! Would you come and look at this?" Ron's voice rang through the cave, abandoning all pretense of stealth. From where he was he could see the entirety of the cave, and there was no one in it besides Harry, himself, and, of course…

"Malfoy?" Harry looked as disbelieving as his voice sounded. He bent down, lighting his wand as well, and could see the pasty face of his school-time enemy. His eyes were closed, and Harry had never seen him so white. The blood around him was still warm, but coagulating, and his breathing was shallow. Harry knew that if they were to save his life, they wouldn't have much time to do it in.

"Mobilicorpsus!" He lifted Draco's sagging form gently off the floor, with visions of him lowering his wand on the Tower swimming in his head. "Ron, send another Patronus. Then, make a Portkey so we can get him back."

He shook Draco's shoulder, wincing as the other boy groaned and coughed wetly. His eyes were working under his closed lids, but too quickly, like they were spasming in pain.

"Get up Malfoy. I need to tell you something."

He wasn't responding, but Harry thought he could hear him. He blinked, remembering how he'd screamed when Harry had used the Prince's spell. The shame made him struggle hard to rouse the injured boy.

"We're taking a trip, now, Malfoy. Number 12 Grimmauld Place." He'd said it just in time, because it was then that the blond boy's eyes rolled back completely and stopped moving altogether.

That was when Hermione ran in.

* * *

Draco woke up staring at a pair of breasts.

They were covered by some sort of cotton half jumper thing, alarmingly Muggle looking, but their overall shape and contour was clearly visible, and that was more than enough to give him pause.

He wasn't complaining, of course. It had been far too long in his opinion since he'd woken up this way. It was just surprising after nearly three months in a cave to wake up in a clean bed eye level with a warm set of delightful female bits that were attached to a body that didn't seem to want to kill him.

_Yup,_ he thought. _Definitely dead. Oh well._

His skull was still throbbing somewhat ardently, making turning his head to look at the woman's face nearly impossible, but he chalked that up as the last vestiges of his confinement to the mortal coil, sure to pass soon.

"He's awake!" the female bits wobbled in an intriguing manner at the woman's hasty call. _Now will come the harem of angelic women to guide me to the gates of… Hang on, then. That voice…_

Despite the pain, his head snapped up to stare straight into the face of the one who possessed such lovely portions. What the hell was Hermione Granger doing in his heaven?

_Oh crap. Maybe this **isn't** heaven? Oh Merlin, what if she's **God**?_

_  
That would suck, he_ mused.

It all came crashing back when he saw Potty, Weasel and someone with sparkling green hair he could only assume was his lost cousin Nymphadora come running in.

"You're alive!" she sounded happy to see so, at least, which was rather startling to him, as he'd never actually met her. His parents had burned Aunt Andromeda's branch on the family tree long before he was born. "Good show!"

"What's going on?" he croaked, embarrassed by the scratchiness of his throat and the resultant cracking in his voice. How long had he been out? "Am I in prison? Where's Snape?"

The trio and his erstwhile relation shot concerned glances at each other.

"Erm," began Nymphadora. "Well, you see the thing is…" She looked uncomfortable and uncertain of how to continue.

Harry broke in.

"Look, Malfoy. Snape traded you for something we wanted. You're here now, and technically in custody until we decide what to do with you. Your head trauma prevented us from questioning you much before now, but if you cooperate we may be able to work with you on getting a lighter sentence." He peered down into Draco's slightly glazed eyes. "Maybe too much at once?" he asked.

"Did you really trade me in for Severus? You'd pick me in custody over him in custody? You must be pettier than I thought." Draco's mind was reeling, not just with the sudden nausea that seemed to accompany consciousness for him now, but with the thought that if they were willing to throw away the prospect of incarcerating Snape, then they blamed him for Dumbledore's death. He'd assumed that they traced the magical residue around Dumbledore, figured out that it wasn't him. He realized that he was magically shackled to the bed.

_Holy hell. Frying pan, fire, Azkaban, not going to make it._

He began to shout, "I didn't kill him, I swear, I swear! It was Snape!"

He was thrashing wildly and dislodging the poultices soaked in healing draughts that were closing up his head wounds. Hermione, who had spent many hours alongside Poppy bandaging and changing bandages became alarmed too. She whipped out her wand, but that only made him more frantic. "I was going to! I had to! I had to! But I didn't! They were going to kill my mum and dad! They did! My dad, they killed him! And my mother, they took her mind! You have to believe me!"

"I do! We do! Calm down!" Hermione's voice was soothing. She felt a stirring of pity for the man before her. "Draco!"

Her use of his common name stilled him, and he looked at her, fevered from the large number of healing potions in his system and his eyes glassy with nausea and ill health. They had figured out as much from Harry's recount of the tale of the Tower. He'd done incorrigible things. But, as Harry put it, would any of them had done any less for each other, had they been him?

Hermione thought Draco Malfoy's main problem was one of pride. He'd been raised to not be humble, or grateful, or accepting. It had fostered in him a sense of superiority that could not have been felled by anything short of utter failure. He'd done well in school and been popular among his cronies, though she privately thought that had more to do with his wealth than his questionable charm. She didn't think he felt the same, but then, some people couldn't see the forest for the trees.

He'd been so used to relying on his own strength and infallibility that it never occurred to him that there were other avenues down which to seek aid. It would have been an unforgivable sin for him to do so, had he even been able to recognize them. It would have been admitting that he was imperfect, which he was led to believe was directly synonymous with 'inadequate.'

She had never seen such horror in his eyes, and she knew she wasn't making up the remorse in them.

She Summoned a calming elixir, and pressed his head back into the pillow gently. "Drink this, and calm down. You're of no use to anyone injured, least of all yourself. We'll figure this out when you wake up." She poured the liquid down his throat, and it tasted like raspberries and raw potato.

"I like your breasts, Granger," he mumbled and fell asleep.

"Well, erm, hmm," she cleared her throat, meeting two disbelieving stares and one faintly amused one. "What now?"

Harry folded his arms across his chest, while Tonks checked Malfoy's vital signs. "Well, first we get you some thick jumpers and a pair of overalls, for one."

She turned scarlet, and smacked Ron for sniggering. They had called their relationship quits almost as soon as it had started, both not wanting to flaunt it in Harry's face, when he couldn't be with Ginny, and also because they fought more together than they had ever had apart. Not that they didn't enjoy the making up bits, but it really hadn't been very productive, and both had been surprised at how quickly whatever they'd had had faded away. It was like the question had been answered and now they were done with the test.

It made it more satisfying to be his friend now. They were free to be as easy and close as they wanted to be, now that there were no eggshells to slip on. She was Ronald Weasley's friend, and she couldn't be happier. Even now, when she wanted to hex him and Harry both. Tonks slipped out, after confirming that Malfoy hadn't damaged himself any further.

"I'm serious. Are we turning him over to the Ministry? Snape basically told us not to, and he _did_ give us the cup."

Ron, rubbing his arm, stepped away from Hermione. "Yeah, but doesn't that mean we should do the opposite?"

Hermione turned sharp eyes on him. "You didn't see him that day, Ronald. I'm sure that something more happened that night than we know about. I'm not saying that I think anything could exonerate him completely, but there is most assuredly something we're missing."

Harry glared at the wall in thought. He was disturbed by how deeply he empathized with Malfoy. He thought about the prophesy and the implications it had on the randomness of the universe. If Voldemort had gone to the Longbottom's house that night, his life would be completely different. If he had taken Malfoy's hand that first day at Hogwarts, both their lives might be completely different. _It was all about choices, really,_ he concluded. _Malfoy chose, mostly wrongly, but it could just as easily have been Ron making those same choices, in another twist of fate. Or me._

His mother's face swam before his eyes and he knew that he would have killed anyone to protect her. Particularly someone she had raised him to dislike.

"We can't turn him over to the ministry. Firstly, because we don't trust them. Secondly, because they don't trust _us_. They'd twist it around to us having harbored fugitives and still find a way to string Malfoy up for every charge of violence and indecency they can't pin on anyone else. Even he doesn't deserve that." He left off his musings to double take Hermione, who was peering at him with a suspiciously moist gaze. His hunch proved correct when she subsequently launched herself at him and enveloped him in a rib-crushing bear hug. "Hurk!" he wheezed.

She buried her head into his shoulder. "That was so mature of you, Harry! I'm proud!" She let him go, with a wet sniffle, only to be shoved aside when a grinning Ron too caught him up in an embrace.

"Oh, Harry!" his gangly, red-haired friend trilled excitedly. "You're such a good, little _man_ now! Oh, when did my ickle precious grow up so?" He pressed the shorter boy's face into the wool of his sweater, and rocked him back and forth, ignoring Harry's wild struggles. He left off when he couldn't successfully clutch his ribs, aching with laughter, and block Harry's punches at the same time.

Hermione gave them both dirty looks, for by now Harry was laughing too, and shoved them both out the room. "Malfoy needs to rest now, and you two would be better occupied on trying to figure out where the next Horcrux is, rather than behaving like idiots, as you are now."

Her words set the boys, who had been calming down, off again and they were too busy reveling in their own mirth to notice the last, speculative look she gave Malfoy's now peaceful form. If they had, they might have been concerned by the soft edges to it.

* * *

The next time Malfoy awoke, it was, sadly, not to a vista of his favorite aspect of the female anatomy. It was to Hermione Granger's face, and the point of her wand.

"Salazar's shaft. What could I possibly have done to offend you? I was unconscious!" Damn that croaky voice of his! It meant that he'd been asleep again for quite sometime. On the upside, his head felt much improved, and the shooting pains behind his eyes were gone completely. He lifted his head experimentally, and found that he was not nauseous, in a pleasing change. He took a moment to revel in that fact, before registering the ravenous hunger that was ironically consuming his insides.

"I brought you some toast and pumpkin juice. If you can stomach that we'll try some clear broth and boiled chicken," she said, ignoring his question. "How do you feel otherwise?"

"Like I've just recovered from a massive head wound, after months in a cave with a traitorous psychopath. And you?" His first gulp of the pumpkin juice was one of the best moments he could remember ever having. Nothing like deprivation to make you appreciate the little things. He stretched the shackles as far as they would go to reach for the pitcher, and refilled his glass.

"Too forgiving by half, Malfoy. I have questions to ask you, and how you answer them is going to have to determine the path your future is going to take. Will you take Veritaserum?" He saw her throat working like she was nervous about something. He thought about her question. He had no where else to turn, and Merlin knows he'd learned his lesson about swallowing his pride.

"Yes, Granger, if it'll help," her stance relaxed ever so slightly. She retrieved the unmarked bottle from the bedside table and poured it into his pumpkin juice.

"Are you working for Voldemort?" she asked.

"Not anymore."

"Do you wish to work for him now?" Her eye twitched. Was the girl under some Jumpiness Hex?

"Not at all. I want nothing to do with him, or his followers." Um, wow. Well, even he was slightly surprised by the vehemence with which he'd said that. Apparently not.

"Are your feelings towards purebloods and Muggle-borns unchanged?" He was afraid of what would come out of him mouth next, as he had no real idea of how he felt.

"If purebloods like my aunt and uncle can do the things they do, I see no real difference between what they're like and what they claim Muggle-borns are like." He paused, suddenly, and slumped over. "I'm just tired, Granger. I'm sick of fighting with everyone for what seems to have amounted to nothing. Everything I've spent my life believing has only led me here, chained to a bed, with a fractured skull and no family or glory to speak of. I don't believe in anything anymore." Hermione didn't know quite how to respond to this. She just moved on to the next question, but it struck her how much his ordeal had changed him.

"Why did Snape find it so imperative that he leave you with us?"

"I suppose because he wanted you people to not hunt him down. I thought he'd be trading me to Voldemort, to be completely honest." He was relieved that it hadn't been the case, even if he didn't understand it.

"That's not so, Malfoy. He gave _us_ something to take _you_. He wasn't concerned with himself at all." Hermione was frowning, which he took to be a bad sign. Also, her wand arm had gone completely rigid again. This was alarming, because everything she was saying was news to him.

"What?" He crinkled his brow at her, and scooted backwards as far as his magical manacles would allow. He shook his head. "That can't be true! He broke the promise he'd made with my mother! He wouldn't do anything for me without it being 100 in his own best interest."

Hermione looked grim when she replied. "That simply isn't so Malfoy. He didn't ask for anything, and he disappeared without any further word. Why do you suppose he'd do this, if it weren't for your sake?"

"I'd assumed he'd fallen out of favor for not killing me upon my failure to get Dumbledore. I thought his plan had backfired on him. My mother said-" but then he stopped, confused. He'd been so certain she was right. What had she said exactly?

_He was supposed to help you kill Dumbledore._ Well, he had, in a way. But it hadn't saved him. Had his mother perhaps been jumping to conclusions as well?

"Your mother? What does she have to do with anything?"

"She's just- Snape promised her to protect me, before school started last year. I didn't think he was really trying to, because he kept trying to deter me from doing what I was supposed to do. I didn't tell him about the Vanishing Cabinet. After Dumbledore's death, Snape and I were in hiding. I thought he'd done it to help me, but then my mother said that he betrayed her by doing it. At least, that's what I took it to mean." His mind was turning cartwheels trying to reconcile this idea with the fact that Snape had apparently tried to ensure his well being.

"What do you mean?" Hermione was starting to make certain connections, and she had the tingling feeling she got before some of her more impressive leaps of logic. She crouched mentally, ready to spring.

"You have to understand, Granger, they broke her mind. They went in with magic, her own sister _went in with magic_, and shredded her brain into pieces because they were looking for me. She wasn't entirely lucid, when we last conversed." Draco was glad to find that the Veritaserum had some sort of dulling effect on his emotions, allowing him to keep the pain at bay as he thought back to that horrible scene. "She kept going on and on about betrayal, and some sort of vow, and how he was supposed to help me kill Dumbledore, and something about picking a side, I can't really remember, but I- Why do you look like I've just told you that the Dark Lord is dead and in his stead bunnies are reigning over Wizard Britain?"

"Because I think I've just put together two and two, Malfoy." She emptied a few more drops into his juice. "What are your intentions for the future?" She said this in a hurry, as if she were anxious to get on to more pressing matters, but there was an undeniable twinkle of curiosity in her eye. She was honest in her interest in his response.

"I- Well, actually, I hadn't really thought about it, past exacting my revenge on Snape. Of course, that seems like a hasty decision in retrospect. Also, I sort of figured either death or prison in the long run. I did poison someone, and send a cursed necklace. Also, the whole thing with keeping Madame Rosemerta under Imperio… I'm fairly sure that I've earned my fate," he trailed off, more than a little disgusted at himself. Even under his old code of ethics, he had no leg to stand on. Rosemerta was as old a family name as the Parkinsons and Malfoys.

Hermione looked thoughtful. "Do you wish us to come to any harm?"

It was a hard question for him to answer. He knew that just a few short months ago he would have answered 'yes' with little to no hesitation, emphasis on the 'no.' Since then however, he'd seen harm. He'd lived some of it. Did he want Weasley to wake suddenly up to a dead father? Did he hope that Potter was forced underground completely, made to live in some dank hovel like the horrid cave? Did he want to see Granger, known far and wide for the nearly miraculous mind she possessed, reduced to a gibbering simpleton, who drooled on herself, and talked mad nonsense?

The last image was the one that had hit him hardest. Seeing his mother like that… At the hands of her sister… He would never want that for anyone. It was real and horrible, and he was very near to becoming the sort of fool who'd invent new ways of making that same sick vision exist. His head began to pound again and he regretted the vigorous enthusiasm with which he'd greeted his breakfast. Hermione looked at him with alarm, seeing his face suddenly flush and the sweat that was beading at his temples.

"It's alright! It's alright! Calm down, please! I take back the question!" But he caught her hand suddenly, in a steely grip. He shook it sharply and stared straight into her startled eyes.

"Do _not_ take back the question." It was an order, but in his face she read the plea. This was it for him. This defined the person he was going to be, for the indeterminable future. She was almost frightened for him. She cleared her suddenly dry throat, keeping her gaze locked with the anarchic eyes that held so much resolve.

"Alright then, Malfoy." She leaned towards him, unconsciously bringing her face very close to his. He was mirroring her action, and if you subtracted the manacles they looked very much like two people about to kiss. He wondered if she knew that, too. "Do you wish us to come to harm?" she repeated. The weight of the moment gripped her, and she could feel it rippling its fingers, causing her chest to tighten and her heart to beat faster.

A lock of blond hair, long and unkempt, but still damnably glossy fell over his face as he answered, but he paid it no mind. "No, Granger. I really don't." His head was bowed, but his eyes were on her.

She really did want to kiss him, then. The thought made her flush and jerk back. She removed her hand. "Erm, that's, well, that's fantastic Malfoy! Congratulations on your, um, your new leaf, and all that. I'll just go talk this over with the Order and then we'll let you know what's going to be happening next."

She jumped up, and fled the room, leaving him on the bed, exhausted and wrung out. _A morning of choices brings an afternoon of consequences,_ he pondered. The implications of all he'd figured out this morning were slowly coming to him. He thought of Crabbe and Goyle, of how his oldest friends, such as they were, were now a part of his past. He felt a stab of regret, knowing that they would never be able to come to the same conclusions he had. Nor would Pansy. She was most assuredly a sharper scalpel than the other two, but she was too secure in her sheltered world of pureblooded elitism. She wouldn't have made it a day in that cave, let alone nearly a summer.

His father was dead, and probably better off, although seeing as how he must be turning in his grave like a Sneak-a-scope on Halloween, that was a hard thing to say. He mourned the man, but had begun to see his life in a different shade of grey. He'd loved his family; no one would deny that about Lucius. He'd been hard, and unforgiving, and critical of any perceived failure, but he had wanted only the best for his family and from his family. In seeking that, he'd done many things, hurt many people, and paved a way that Draco knew he didn't want to follow. It wasn't that suddenly he assumed that everything his father had done was wrong. He was sure that Lucius had his reasons for every decision he'd made. It was just that now he, Draco, would be making decisions for himself. He sighed, sinking back and trying to maneuver into a comfortable position without cutting off circulation to his manacled hands.

_Damn. All out of toast._

* * *

It was unanticipated how quickly it would actually be to decide Malfoy's fate. Harry put it best, as he was sometimes known to do, in simple terms.

"Nobody here is as forgiving as Dumbledore was, and I don't reckon anyone ever could be. But if he was willing to offer Malfoy a second chance, then I suppose it's only right that we should too."

Of course, Ron had followed that up with: "And if he screws up this one, we'll use his legs as croquet mallets, eh?" He repeated this prospect to Malfoy, when they had notified him of his status. Malfoy took it in the spirit in which it was intended: a warning, a threat, a promise, and a bizarre sort of welcome.

The more bewildering topic in that meeting was the actions taken by Severus Snape. Hermione had, with Draco's cooperation, concocted a pensive of the afternoon of his trip to Malfoy Manor. She surmised that Draco's mother was of the opinion that Severus was a follower of Dumbledore, rather than a follower of the Dark. Bellatrix's coaxing might have prodded her towards this conclusion, and Narcissa blamed his lack of allegiance for her present condition, no doubt because that's what Bellatrix had told her.

They were trying to track down Snape, knowing that there was piece missing, a step skipped in recreating that night on the Tower, which might prove useful in the future.

Ahh, the future.

Hermione was perplexed by the relief she felt at the verdict. How could she be so invested in this boy's future, when two weeks ago she had sort of hoped he was gone for good?

Six years of bitter memories still existed. No one forgot the prat he'd been, or the wrongs he'd done. But somehow, with outright war looming, and losses on both sides, caring about who he'd been seemed petty, and in the end, moot. He wasn't exactly a clean slate, but hopefully with some support and a bit of luck he'd make right with it. He truly wasn't the boy he'd been on the Tower, moreover, he wasn't the boy who said and done those things. He was older now, and understood the world in a way he refused to accept then.

Was he a saint? Circe, no. He hogged the bathroom, called people names, sulked when he didn't get his way, and was dogmatic in his insistence that he knew the right method of solving any problem. He still walked a fine line between his old ideas and his new ones. But he was a person who would risk everything for his family, who took a harder path than he'd really had to, who was trying to learn to change and take up everything changing entailed.

Life was about knowing when to stop picking at scabs. Sometimes you had to let the callous form, let there be scar tissue, let yourself grow back different, in order to grow back whole.

* * *

Five months later

"Oi, Granger. You said you'd look over the memory repairing charms for me?" Draco threw himself down next to her, closer than was strictly necessary. This wouldn't have been a problem for her, if she hadn't been asleep in her bed when he did it. She woke up from her nap with a start, hair flying everywhere, a shriek on her lips and a scowl on her face.

"Do you not have any manners?" she snapped, flicking him in the ear, which she knew he hated.

"I have manners, Granger! I don't fall asleep when I'm supposed to be helping someone, do I?" He smirked at her, and she gave a tiny thrill to see him look so well. Also, because for some reason, the little twists at the corners of his mouth fascinated her.

"I'm sorry, when do you ever help people? That would mean you'd have somehow proven yourself useful, and Merlin knows that can't be true."

"You should be sorry, Granger. You're lazy and you say hurtful things." Her growl was threatening, and yet he found he couldn't stop laughing. He wondered if it was the sleep that was making her eyes look so very luminous in her face, or the anger. He decided it didn't matter, that he was going to make it a point to wake her up this way whenever he could, the end results were just so fetching.

She pinched him, and he snagged her hand. "None of that, please."

"No, really, Draco, what do you want? I was up all night with Calumn Boot, and I'm dead tired." She flopped backwards, and yawned, half-heartedly covering her mouth with the back of one small hand.

"Calumn Boot is an insufferable peon," said Draco, crossing his arms. "He's the cure for insomnia, not a cause for it." He didn't even attempt to look contrite when she opened one eye to glare at him in rebuke.

"That isn't nice."

"I'm not nice. I'm also not wrist-slittingly boring, either, so congratulations on trading up."

"Oh, Malfoy, he isn't that bad. Leave off."

Draco frowned. Defending him? This wouldn't do. "No, he isn't that bad. He's worse. And worse than that, he's entirely infatuated with you."

Hermione snuggled further back into her pillow. "You're ridiculous."

"What were you two doing, that you didn't get any sleep?" Draco leaned against her headboard. Long stands of dark hair wound around his thigh, as she flipped around to look up at him.

"We were going over the information he had about Scrimgeour's plans. He's been with the ministry for nearly four years. We should be thankful that Terry convinced him to work with the Order. He could lose his job for this, and his life, if word gets back to Voldemort." He tugged a stray curl, gently, and watched her wrinkle her nose.

"We should think about it. That man is more effective than a dose of the Draught. Maybe we can bore Voldemort into submission."

"Don't even joke." He caught her hand on the backswing, leaning down to grin at her, and then suddenly, it was that first day he'd awoken, when he'd taken her hand, and asked her to ask him the question that would change his life. She stared at their fingers, locked together, the same hands but different people now.

"Hermione." His voice was heavy, and his eyes were dark. He too gazed down at where his long fingers tangled with hers, and his breath caught. He felt like he could scry the future from the depths of her pupils. The future and the past tangled, fought, and fell away.

Choices. He'd discovered the power of them when he'd last held her hand in this embrace. This time, he was exercising his knowledge of it when he leaned over to cover her mouth with his.

She kissed him back, with everything she'd felt since that first moment, when she'd seen in him the potential for someone better. He ate at her lips, getting drunk off her breath, drinking the noises she made down with a singular gluttony. He commanded her body so that she was open for him, and painstakingly peeled away the garments that obstructed their touches. He never let go of her hand.

Their robes bunched up beside their bodies, extra padding beneath her as he parted her legs and rolled between them. She pulled as far away as he would allow her, further than she wanted to be away, and stared at him, naked and swollen lipped. "Malfoy, I-"

"God, yes. Again, Granger! Say it."

He slid their joined hands above her head, and brought his other one to rest just above the top of her thighs.

"What? I- Are we- Is this-"

He pressed down slightly, reprioritizing her train of thought as she arched up and moaned. A fingertip moved to stroke lower languidly, and then stopped, and she knew unequivocally that it was Malfoy who had her because he was smirking, dammit, and those eyes of his had never been so grey as they looked then. She moaned again.

"Wrong, Granger, though delightful. I thought you were supposed to be the clever-clocks here! I asked you to do something for me-" His clever, provoking fingers slid lower again and she actually keened, bringing her legs up and over to tug at him with her calves. "Say it again."

"I don't underst- Oh, oh, Merlin, don't! Don't stop! Oh, don't!" But she could feel him begin to pull his hand away. "Malfoy, ple-" And then his fingers slid home, and twisted, making her cry out in bliss.

"Good girl. Ten points and the house cup," he grinned at her, bringing his mouth to her throat, and nipping at her ear. "Shall I show you just how proud I am of your perspicuity?"

Hermione stopped moving for a moment, and stared up at him, almost, but not quite completely, shocked. "Perspicuity? _Really_? I… I'm impressed."

She got the faint impression of an indignant huff before she found herself parted, legs pressed back to each side of her chest, and Malfoy pressing himself in the slick space between. "Yes, yes. Let's have sarcasm time now. Merlin knows it would be too much to ask for a heartfelt expression of respect and trust." He was working himself against her, making her writhe against him. He bit at her neck, pretending to be angry and she laughed, even as she fought his hold to try and force him to end the teasing and enter her.

He leaned further over, and then there was no more laughing. The was him inside of her, and her around him, and it made him wish that he were a wizard who could cry because it felt so good, so right, he didn't know how to feel it all. Instead, he pressed forward in slow, deep thrusts, and he began to whisper things into her neck that only her heart could hear.

That same lock of hair fell into his face, and this time she reached for it, brushed it back, and drew him up to ground herself in the moment. He looked at her and she came, because feeling him inside her, his pulse against her skin, his mouth on hers, and having his darkened grey eyes on her face was too much for her to handle.

Hermione understood at last why it had felt so imperative that she be the one to handle Snape's note. For all the bollocks she thought Divination, she'd come face to face with destiny (she had, after all, been bffs with Harry effing Potter for nearly half her life) and she recognized its smug features. Nothing was certain, of course. Her need to be involved in Snape's plan could have been nerves. Snape could have just as easily given Draco to Voldemort. Harry could have thrown him to the ministry in a show of 'good faith.' She could have, and yes, okay, it was unlikely but she supposed entirely _possible _for her to havebrewed the Veritaserum incorrectly, rendering him fully capable of lying. There was some sort of inevitability to their crossing paths again. But in the end it came down to, as it always does with things like destiny and fate, the power of choice.

Bit amazing really, she mused dreamily, jolted out of her body as she clenched around him for a second time, watching him hitch her legs higher. There's so many decisions that could have gone differently, which would have led to a multitude of divergent places. She arched up to kiss him again, shivering with ardor. We could have lost this so many times over. Free will is so dangerous, she thought hazily, as he cried out her name, and spilled over. So much responsibility, so many ways to fail and so much to forfeit should you do.

Then he looked at her, and wrapped her coverlet around them both. He arranged her against his chest, and smiled at how her arms tightened in a sleepy trap. She dropped an absentminded kiss on his shoulder as she settled further into his embrace. He cleared his throat.

"I think I might be in love with you, Granger. How do you feel about that?"

As Hermione jerked up in shocked delight to stare at him, and leaned in to take his lips with hers, she realized that she had never been happier to have free will in her life.

[end

"One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it's remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver's license."

P J O'Rourke

STORY REQUEST  
BRIEFLY describe what you'd like to receive: Angst, canon characters, tension  
What rating would you prefer? NC 17  
Deal Breakers (what don't you want?): Character assassination, fluff, pregnancy or children


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